Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Road Scary Road

I have always wondered how phobia or trauma feels like. I think I have encountered a mild version of it :p

There is one T-shaped junction on the way to my house which is badly lit at night with only 1 lamp post standing. The road is on a hill which ends at the 2-way junction at the bottom. Few accidents have happened there including a bus which probably had a brake problem and it ended up crashing into the ditch after the 2-way junction yikes.

Before The Accident, I had a near-accident with a 4-wheel with only its 1 side light functioning. I was driving downwards from the hill and assumed that there was no car at the left before continuing to drive to my right. And suddenly there was this loud screeching sound behind me which nearly made my heart stopped beating. I looked back and saw this black 4-wheel (no wonder I couldn't spot it) with only 1 side light emitting weakly at its left side ( Again, it's a blind spot from my side). I think the driver of the 4-wheel was also shocked and it just stayed put for about a minute. Me? I quickly drove away. He was in the wrong anyway.

Even after that, I still used that road after work after having promised to myself that I'd look both sides of the road real hard 'till I'm squinting to watch out for light-less cars and especially in black colors. Then came the day of the Accident.

As usual that night, I stopped at the junction and looked both ways. There was a car coming from the right but it had a signal and it was driving at a slow pace. So I thought, Okay this car is going to turn into my side and I just accelerated forward. The car didn't slow down. What the...?! It was just like in a slow motion movie. The car came into contact with the driver's seat with a not-so-loud crasshh sound and we were staring at each other for about 10 seconds. The driver and his friend went out of the car, I pulled down the car window and said, 'Hey, you had a signal.' And he said, 'No, we had the emergency light on.' What the...?!

Turned out that the guy's car headlights weren't functioning properly so he switched on the emergency light to warn other drivers.And I argued back that from my side I couldn't see the emergency lights from both sides of the car unless I was driving on the same road as him. In the end, I had my guy came over and negotiated to pay a reasonable sum for his car damage (headlight completely smashed). Fortunately the guy was a softie, so he agreed to the amount without any shouting any swearing!

So after that, I still use that road after work but instead of directly driving out to the right at the junction, I turned left instead and took the 1-minute drive to the roundabout and make a turn to the right lane. It ate about 2 minutes of my time but that's ok, I didn't want to face the risk of bumping into light-less cars!

But....there was a time when I said to myself, let's try one time just to see if I can overcome my fear of driving out straight from that junction. That time was perfect...there were no cars around except mine. After looking both ways three times, I went forward...and there was this horrible, panicky feeling inside me with my heart beating loudly for extra bonus :p I had that uncomfortable feeling right until I reached home. Phew!

So yeah, that was a first mild version of phobia experience for me. Could take me a while before I can brave myself to drive that path again :p